


A Case of an Ailment

by BlueSakura007



Series: Jen’s Fictional Male Characters and Female OC Short Stories [1]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Procedures, Needles, Original Character(s), Phobias, Stomach Ache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27634537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueSakura007/pseuds/BlueSakura007
Summary: When the Hacker is suffering from hellish cramps and pains, Medic is brought to help - however, what they first need to get around in order to treat her is her phobia of needles.Hacker is my own OC and the Secretary is one created by and belonging to AgentSandraCartrip, who I recommend you checking out.  :3
Relationships: Medic (Team Fortress 2)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Jen’s Fictional Male Characters and Female OC Short Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020570
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	A Case of an Ailment

The Hacker was laid out on the top of her bed, slightly curled up.  
Valeria Weatherford never expected this pain she was experiencing to take place - it was nothing more than an unforeseen event as a result - although she had to admit to herself that she should’ve at least had an idea this would happen. After all, earlier that very same day she’d experienced a tiny twinge of a significantly more dull version of this current sensation, during which it had shown itself on her facial expression and consequently Sniper had enquired as to whether she was alright. ‘You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten something, mate’, was the advice that this Australian had given her, and it had worked, until now, that is. But she’d decided to not go to the man who was responsible for her medical care, as well as that of the other mercs; the reason for this was because she reached the conclusion that everyone had, for lack of a better term, a bit of a funny tum-tum every now and then, so therefore she should stop being a baby and just wait for it to pass. And yet here she was, at roughly about 9:40 PM, writhing around on her bed thanks to the dull, ‘weird’ pain from several hours earlier having escalated to a very sharp and throbbing one which had fully spread throughout her abdomen by now. The time in between the two had only been a temporary reprieve.  
  
To put it simply, what she was experiencing right now was pure and utter _hell_.  
  
“What do you want us to do?” Another of the mercs and the only other female one, the Secretary, asked in concern as she and Scout watched their teammate and friend groan weakly every ten seconds while she slithered in place. They’d been walking down the corridor outside Hacker’s room an estimate of a couple of minutes ago when they’d heard her groaning and came in to see what was the matter. “Do you want us to get you anything to help?”  
  
“Yeah.” Valeria managed to answer in between a mixture of her cringing and her trying to slow down her breaths as an unsuccessful attempt at dumbing down the pain; her dark brown-red shoulder length hair had become slightly more messy in the last few minutes, and she felt like her temperature was marginally raised right now, making the situation even worse. And then, choosing to go ahead with the plan of action that she’d decided to not use earlier, she added, “Two things: get Medic, and get him quickly!”   
  
“Should one of us stay with you here in the meantime?”  
  
“No, I’ll be alright alone for a minute or two.” She gave another answer to Francoise. With that, Scout informed her that they’d be back in a minute, and then the pair were off like a shot, making their way out of the room and down the corridor towards the Medic’s infirmary as quickly as possible. Finding no better alternative at this moment in time, Hacker clasped both of her hands over her stomach and tried to gently give it a self massage, and as expected, this was only about 4% effective.  
  
  
  
“Is zere anysing else I should know?”  
  
“She was sayin’ she felt hot, and I think she looked like she was having’ these cramps earlier, a few hours ago.” Replied Scout, him and Secretary now walking in lockstep back towards Hacker’s room on either side of their fellow merc whose presence she’d requested.  
  
“I see. Vell zen, it’s good zat you two came to tell me, or else her recovery vould be much more of a slow process.”  
  
Jeremy and Francoise would be outright lying if they claimed that Medic’s seriousness didn’t surprise them - usually, when it came to other patients, he would appear excited at the prospect of putting his medical tools to use and his outward behaviour would be described as giddy, but somehow, the incident he was faced with at this moment was making his behaviour instead appear to be that of calmness. It was a rarity that they’d been unfamiliar with until Valeria joined the team.  
  
Within another few seconds, meanwhile, Hacker herself finally managed to find at least some relief when the door to her room opened from the outside, and in stepped the doctor. Help had arrived. She rolled over onto her right, having previously been facing the wall next to her bed on her left, in order to look in the direction of the door a few feet in front of her with her head still laid down on the mattress.  
  
“Evening, Josef.” She and some of the other mercs sometimes liked to address him by his real name.  
  
“Good evening, Frau Hacker.” He returned the greeting at the same time as walking up next to her and temporarily kneeling down so that he could get the tools he needed, which he’d brought with him, together; he put them out of his hands and onto the floor, gathering them together appropriately whilst Secretary closed the door again behind them. “Scout told me zat you vere having zis same problem earlier, but to a much smaller degree. Vhy didn’t you come to see me vhen it happened?” He turned his head to look at her.  
  
“It was only by a tiny smidgen at that point in time... so I thought I could just ride it out. I thought that I shouldn’t... need to rely on medication for every little problem like that. It was gone again for a while.” She needed to pause for a couple of moments so as to allow her intervals of cringing.  
  
“Ja, but as ve can all see, it made a rather nasty return, so zis just goes to show zat when you’re unwell, you need to come to me, even if it is just ‘by a tiny smidgen’.” Medic said to her in a fractionally scolding manner. “If left untreated, zat smidgen could lead to somezhing bigger, like zis.”  
  
“Sorry...”  
  
“It’s alright, just always remember to come and see me vhen zhese zings happen, ja?” By now he’d assembled the main component of the method he was going to use for treating her: a thin metal pole.  
  
“Okay.” She nodded her head, using her free hand that wasn’t clasped over her abdomen to sweep some stray strands of her hair out of her face, at the same time as wondering to herself what it was that he was planning on doing.  
Muttering to himself about nothing in particular, the Medic then reached inside one of his coat’s pockets and removed his pair of red gloves, proceeding to pull them onto his hands and feeling pleasurable chills run down his spine when their loud snapping noise was heard a couple of seconds later; Francoise and Jeremy were also wondering what his plan of action was by this point, as the only medical tool they were able to see him carrying a few seconds ago was the parts of the pole, and they were additionally thinking, ‘What type of treatment for this sort of problem needs his gloves to be used?’ The rest was obviously inside the white briefcase he’d been holding that was now on the floor.  
  
Their mental queries were soon answered, though, when he opened up the briefcase, and all three of the others could see that inside it was a long, thin plastic wire, a bag currently containing a clear fluid, and an item strongly resembling a small syringe.  
  
“This was a bad idea.” They weren’t looking at her, so they couldn’t see her do so, but the other 3 heard Valeria make this comment to herself next to them, and she seemed to have regained some motivation to move, because they did turn their heads to see what was happening when she abruptly pulled herself off of her bed, landing on the floor and creating a noise in the process. The floor was made of wood, and she instantly wished that she’d stayed, because it was cold - she could feel the coldness thanks to its surface making direct contact with her torso’s skin that wasn’t covered up by her crop top. As quickly as she could, she still felt like she couldn’t get up so she tried to pull herself along the floor on her way to where the door was, whilst moving still made the pain intensify and made her keep cringing. Eventually, however, she admitted defeat when she was about halfway across the room, feeling even more tired and groggy now than she did a minute ago, and she rolled onto her back and weakly stared up at the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. In this time, Josef had barely moved at all and neither had Scout or Secretary, because there’d been a very good reason for them to not be rushing to catch her.  
  
“You okay, Val?” Enquired Scout.  
  
“No...” She was then back in the same position on the floor: curled up with one hand on her stomach. “Why can’t you just give me a pill or something like that, Medic?”  
  
Josef, remembering that she had trypanophobia and that this was most likely the reason behind what had just happened, got up from where he’d been kneeling and approached her. “Because my IV treatment is a much quicker method; a pill vould take half an hour or a whole hour to put itself into effect, because it needs to travel through zhe digestive tract first and be broken down before zhe liver releases its remnants into zhe bloodstream, but as implied in its name, an intravenous drip takes a shortcut directly to zhe veins and zhe bloodstream vizhout needing to go through zhe process of being broken down.” He stood over her as he said this making himself look like a mostly dark silhouette from her perspective courtesy of the ceiling’s lightbulb, but after he’d finished speaking, he knelt down towards her so that their faces were now only about a foot away from each other. “I chose zis option because I thought you’d vant a more immediate solution.”  
  
“I do, I do, it’s just I wish that quicker solution didn’t have to involve things prodding through my skin.” She shook her head and shuddered at the thought of it.  
  
Making sure to do it carefully, Medic reached his arms out and used them to pick Valeria up off the floor, during which she groaned again almost silently to herself, and he hoisted her up into a position where her head was over his shoulder and her legs were dangling loosely in front of his chest.  
“I know, Hacker. I have no intention on forcing you into anysing zat you don’t vant to do, but I’m afraid it’s either zis or sit through zhe pain for anozher hour.” He responded to her in a tone that was dominated by understanding and a gentleness that Scout and Secretary both found to be another occurrence they’d never seen from him before, prompting them to be surprised once again while Josef knelt down again, this time slightly but not fully, so that he could safely sling her off of his shoulder and back onto her bed after he’d walked back up to it.  
  
“I... alright then, I suppose I’ll do it...” Hacker chose to swallow her phobia and ride it out, this objective potentially being more successful this time.  
  
He nodded in acknowledgement. “Zhank you. A person’s phobia is a difficult thing for zhem to get around, so I think it’s good of you to try and do zhat.” He displayed a small, brief smile as a way to show that he was proud before he turned back around towards his briefcase on the floor.  
  
Jeremy and Francoise, during this, both sat down a few feet away in the computer chair and the regular chair in the vicinity of Valeria’s ‘gaming den’ in the corner of the room, watching Medic pull out the liquid-filled plastic bag from the briefcase in one hand and then the thin wire in the other.  
His patient herself observed what he was doing, her fear currently being one that made the feeling in her stomach feel somewhat more sickening, but it didn’t become more serious until she watched him use the same hand he was utilising for holding the wire also grasp hold of the syringe.  
  
Her eyes had grown wider and for a moment she could’ve sworn she could feel her breath catching in her throat, along with her heartbeat racing and with it ringing in her ears. She was completely fine around doctors in general, it was just when they pulled out these dreaded tools that shoved medicines directly into her blood when she experienced the previously described reaction. Oh my god, oh blimey...  
She watched him hang up the bag on the pole next to her bed and then attach one end of the wire to the bottom of the bag, allowing the fluid to flow through it and to the other end, which was currently closed. Now that this was done, he lifted up the needle to attach it to this other end of the wire, prompting Hacker to instinctively pull her legs in closer to herself because of it being nearer than it was a moment ago.  
  
“It’s alright, Val.” Secretary reassured her friend when she witnessed her do this.  
“Francoise is right, you know.” Added Medic in agreement, neither of these two sentences being completely heard as a result of her accelerated heart rate pounding through her ears. He attached the plunger end, which was open, onto the loose end of the wire, and now the fluid from the bag had pushed itself into the syringe as well.  
  
There was a chair next to her bed, as well, so the German pulled this up underneath him and used it to sit on as he brought the needle closer to her bed. “Could you give me your arm please?”  
  
She decided that her right arm was closer to him, so she slowly, tentatively, reached this one out, with a small tear each materialising in both of her eyes. With his empty hand, the left one, he grabbed hold of her forearm - she experienced some chills there as well as down her back when she felt that his glove was rubbery and cold, but soothingly so after the split second in which its coldness took her by surprise - in a manner that was mostly gentle.  
“Hey, look who’s here!” Scout got everyone’s attention, except for Medic’s because of him wanting to focus on what he was doing, and the former seemed to be pointing to the corner of the room opposite him and Francoise; what appeared to be a white dove with some bloodstains populating its feathers poked its head out from behind a pile of books and computer manuals there, emitting a small cooing noise as it looked directly at the pair.  
  
“Archimedes!” Hacker, realising that he must’ve been following Medic down the corridor a minute ago and gotten into the room unnoticed before the door was shut again, exclaimed in surprise upon hearing the ‘coo’.  
Medic also reached his own realisation due to his loyal pet seemingly providing a distraction: it was now or never, and therefore he used his other hand, while she wasn’t looking, to jab the needle into the underside of her right forearm. This made her attention return in an instant as she gasped from the sharp sting there, looking at it with her eyes wide again.  
“You did it! It’s okay, zhe hard part’s over now.” He told her, the smile returning to his features. “Vell done, Valeria.”  
  
However, before she could respond, she noticed straight away that for some reason, she suddenly felt more drowsiness than she did before, her eyelids momentarily closing themselves by a few degrees - a change that had to be connected with the drip that the vein inside her arm had just been connected to. “What exactly... did... you put in that IV, Medic...?”  
“Zhe main fluid inside zhe bag is ibuprofen in liquid form, which I enhanced a vhile ago to be more effective and vith zhat being vhy it’s clear in colour, but a few minutes ago I also added a small handful of my anaesthetic supply into it as an extra ingredient, so zhat it could help you to sleep better, as well.” He gave his reply at the same time as wrapping a thin bandage he’d removed from one of his coat’s pockets around the area of her wrist where the needle was located, so as to make it more secure.  
“We saw ‘im putting some other liquid into the bag.” Added Scout in confirmation of his answer.  
“Well, I’ve got to hand it to you, I actually think I like it.” Another thing she noticed was that the pain in her stomach had begun to gradually wash away, piece by piece, after the IV needle had been inserted, and it was being replaced at the same speed with a pleasantly warm wave spreading throughout all of the veins in her body. She’d regained the motivation to move as a result, so she uncurled her body and moved into a position where she was laid out flat on top of her bed’s duvet.  
“You do look a little bit less pale.” Agreed Secretary, with Scout also nodding his head - whilst his methods, from what she’d seen, were what you’d call ‘unusual’ more often than not, one thing she’d learned was to never underestimate how well he could get the job done.  
  
“You’ll start to feel a little bit doolally in a few minutes.” Medic told the shorter-haired one of the females. Whilst he informed her of this, he remembered his left hand was still very near to her right forearm, and he decided to make an attempt at using a technique from the field of medicine that he’d heard of before: holding it next to where the drip was, and moving his thumb slowly and gently, as if he were using it to rub her arm. From what he’d read about this technique, it was a method for doctors to non-verbally let their patient know that they were still there.  
“Define ‘doolally’ in this case.” She said as a request for clarification.  
“The type of anaesthetic zhat I put in zhe intravenous bag is a moderate sedative, so you’ll feel as if you’re intoxicated and your speech vill be slurred, but it’s nozhing to be vorried about; zat’s normal for zis level of sedation.”  
  
  
Sure enough, it was about ten minutes or so later when Valeria, who’d now gotten under the duvet and was laid with most of her body underneath it and her head on the pillow, was smiling inanely to herself and gazing up at the ceiling.  
“How d’you feel?” Jeremy asked his friend, him and Secretary having moved their chairs closer to her bed a couple of minutes ago.  
Hacker turned her head to the right to look at him, as the pair were sat next to Medic, and her grin grew wider. “The liquid ibuprofen really worked, and that anaesthetic that’s in it’s making me feel _good_...~” She let out a small chuckle to no one in particular, right before a certain bloodstained dove flapped its way over to her bed through the air and landed to her left, on her pillow. “Hellew.” In response to this, Archimedes ‘coo’ed once again and tilted his head, making her laugh.  
“You were the perfect diversion earlier, weren’t you?” Secretary addressed the avian creature with her own smile, both at how cute the birb was and at how effective his presence had been in taking Hacker’s mind off of what took place a few minutes ago.  
  
“We should probably go now; it’s gettin’ late.” Said Scout, before looking back at Valeria and emitting a small chuckle. “And it looks like Val’s done for the night, too.”  
She appeared to currently be sound asleep, both of her arms still outside of the duvet while the rest of her body was underneath, with her mouth slightly open.  
“That must be the sedative.” Commented Francoise in the same manner. “I take it she’ll be okay in the morning?”  
“Ja, zhe enhanced ibuprofen inside her veins vill have been maintained long enough for its lasting effect to do its job. And she’ll be a little bit tired to start vith but zhe anaesthetic vill feel rejuvenating to her.” Josef replied.  
“Like coffee?” The female who was still awake also asked.  
“Precisely.” He nodded his head. “I’ll stay vith her just for anozher minute so zhat I can make sure she’s comfortable, and then I’ll come back here in zhe morning to help her remove zhe drip.”  
  
“See you, Doc.” Scout bade him goodnight as he got up from where he was sitting and then, after he’d looked back at his sleeping friend one last time, he and Secretary walked out of the room, closing the door behind them. “So, when are we gonna tell her?” As soon as the door was shut, she addressed Francoise.  
“Let’s not just yet; let’s see how long it takes her to work it out herself.” She smiled in mostly suppressed laughter. “Although mind you, Medic will probably be a pensioner by the time he gets round to admitting it himself.”  
“Yeah.” Jeremy joined in with this same type of laughter. “It’s kinda amazing how Val hasn’t noticed something this obvious yet.” As they began to walk away, en route back to their own rooms, he glanced over his shoulder at the door’s window, where he could still see Medic sat next to Hacker’s bed and making sure that the IV wire was straight so that there was absolutely no chance of it getting tangled in the night, doing all this while smiling serenely.  
  
  
“Mornin’ all.” Sniper addressed his fellow mercs about ten hours later as he walked downstairs into the briefing room, rubbing one of his eyes.  
  
“Hi Snipes.” Returned Scout, letting out a yawn at the same time as momentarily stretching his arms out behind him.  
  
“Did any of you hear the rumour that’s floating around?” Spy, in the middle of lighting one of his cigarettes and placing it into his mouth, asked in his usual clipped voice. As always, the purr of his French accent sent a shiver down Secretary’s neck and the middle of her back.  
  
“What rumour’s that?” Queried Engineer. He’d been sat on one side of the room for the last few minutes, in a chair with one leg over the other while playing a couple of quiet notes on his guitar.  
  
“From what I’ve heard, apparently last night Medic spent the entire night sleeping in Hacker’s room, right next to her bed.” Replied the masked figure with a tiny chuckle lacing the smile that had just appeared.  
  
“ _What_.” Francoise, in curiosity, instantly snapped her head into the direction of the male who’d just spoken.  
  
“Demoman claimed a few minutes ago that when he was walking down one of the upstairs corridors late at night, he happened to catch a glimpse through the door’s window of both of them asleep, with him having his head on the top of her bed and with the rest of his body slumped over a chair.”  
  
“It’s true, I swear I saw it!” The Scotsman himself confirmed from his own chair a few feet away, and as expected, he was holding a still full cider bottle that he was hoping to open in the next few seconds. “And I also saw the lassie having something attached to her arm, I think it was connected to a bag filled up with some kind o’ liquid.”  
  
“One of Doctor’s experimental treatments, maybe...?” Heavy thought out loud.  
  
“It could be something new he’s been working on, yes.” Nodded Spy in agreement.  
  
“Val told me yesterday evenin’ that she had bellyache, and she looked dreadful as well, so Medic must’ve been tryin’ to help her with that.” Said Sniper.  
  
Scout, sat adjacent to the brunette, turned his head and gave her a knowing look about the rumour they’d just been told about, simultaneously trying and partly failing to suppress his own chuckles. “‘I’ll only stay with her for another minute’ he said, ‘I’ll come back in the morning’ he said! Can we go upstairs and tell her now? Pleeease? I bet even the other guys here think it’s obvious, too!”  
“Not yet, not yet! Sssssshhhh!” Secretary placed a finger over her lips and quietly laughed to herself.  
  
  
Josef, having only awoken roughly thirty seconds ago, was spending some of his time wiping the sand from the corners of his eyes and readjusting his glasses, which had gone slightly askew in the night. After he was done, he took a moment to allow his pupils to adjust to the darkness in the room except for gentle sunlight streaming in through the window on the door and through the white curtains in front of the window placed to the right of the bed, and he put himself back up into a proper seated position in his chair. His red rubber gloves were still covering his hands, his lab coat was still being worn by the rest of his body and, in addition, it seemed that Archimedes, too, was peacefully sleeping at the bottom of the bed.  
  
It was a little bit after this same moment when Medic could faintly see Valeria make some tiny movements as she began to stir, starting with her head as she still felt as if her eyelids were heavy and she yawned to herself before, slowly and piece by piece, she managed to roll over onto her right side. It was still mostly dark, but she could partially see the intravenous syringe still attached to her right arm; for a split second she felt a surge of panic, before she remembered the events of the previous night and that she didn’t have to go through the process of it being plunged through her skin again. Her eyes, still resisting the strong urge to drop back off into the land of sleep, flicked upwards when another thing she remembered was that there’d been someone else with her during these events.  
  
Medic, delicately placing one of his gloved hands onto her right forearm and making that chill residing in her spine make a reappearance, smiled in the same manner while the light through the curtains touched the left hand side of his glasses’ frames. “Guten morgen, Frau Hacker.”  
  
Archimedes emitted a little ‘coo’ as he woke up as well and tilted his head by a few degrees.


End file.
